


Seven Lines

by Anonymous



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Case Fic, Comedy, Crack, Dark Humor, F/M, Gif discourse, Humor, Loss, Memes, Mystery, No Smut, Serial Killer, The earth is a cup, Vines, confused Connor, crack treated semi-seriously?, should I even continue this, some romance in there cause I’m lonely and sad and Connor is Connor lmao, this whole fic is a shitpost im sorry, why did I write this?????
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-06 07:39:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16383980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: You’re a detective at the DPD yadda yadda and you get called in on a disturbing case of a serial killer with an... unusual sense of communication. That is- old memes. Can you and Connor crack the case and more importantly admit your feelings and smooch before the end of the fic? Oh yeah and the other characters are there too I guess.





	1. Coffee & Corpses

 

You let out a tired sigh and blinked blearily at the data pad in front of you. After hours of nothing to do but an endless stream of paperwork your eyes were starting to glaze over and all the letters and numbers blurred into one another. You could really use a-

 

“Detective [l/n],” a familiar voice broke through your thoughts and you looked up to meet the person who’d seemingly read your mind as they held a paper cup out to you. “I couldn’t help noticing you have been experiencing symptoms of acute fatigue. As it is still somewhat early in the work day, I took the liberty of preparing some coffee for you.”

 

You broke into a grin and latched onto the cup as if it held the last drop of available water after being stranded in a desert, downing a third of it in one swig. You’d half expected the hot liquid to burn your tongue but of course it didn’t. It was absolutely the perfect temperature, made that way by the perfect person hovering over your desk.

 

You set the cup down and grasped the man’s hands, meeting his deep brown eyes intently with your own and ignoring the slight flapping of butterfly wings that resulted. “Con, Connor, Connie,” you deadpanned, his eyes crinkling ever so slightly in amusement at the easy friendliness you treated him with. “You are an angel in android form. You have no idea how much I needed that.”

 

A small smile quirked at the android’s lips and with it you found yourself squashing down more butterflies as you listened to Connor lecture that he, in fact, did know how much you could use caffeine as he had the ability to monitor your vitals. You mentally slapped yourself as his voice faded to the background and you caught yourself staring at his freckles. ‘Bad [y/n], bad!’ You thought to yourself, continuing to sip your coffee. You were in no hurry to complicate your life with some dumb office romance, ‘not that that would ever happen, [y/n], don’t flatter yourself.’ You mentally cursed whoever at Cyberlife had designed Connor’s dumb perfect face; it really wasn’t fair. If you ever did meet them you weren’t sure whether to thank them or sue for emotional damages.

 

“Oi, Connor!” A gruff voice interrupted your thoughts as well as Connor’s continued rambling as Lt. Anderson approached your desk from Fowler’s office. “If you’re done reciting the RK800 user’s manual to [l/n] here, we’ve got a crime scene to get to.”

 

Connor glanced back at you almost sheepishly as he made to follow his partner before the lieutenant turned to you. “Oh yeah, you too. Grab your asshole partner and meet us at New Jericho.”

 

Your eyes widened and you glanced at Connor with concern. Everyone knew the famous android haven, and knowing the part Connor played in the revolution he probably had a lot of friends there. If it was the location of a crime scene-

 

You squeezed his hand you hadn’t realized you were still holding in an effort to extend some modicum of comfort before standing up to grab your jacket. Gavin wasn’t at his desk across from you so you headed for the break room to find your “asshole partner” as Hank hadso eloquently put it.

 

——

 

“Oh god, what the hell?”

As you followed Gavin into the shipping container you couldn’t help but agree. Seven bodies lined the floor of the container. And then there was the smell. A couple of the bodies seemed a bit “fresher” but it was clear some had a bit of a head start on decomposing.

 

Despite finding your partner goofing off in the break room it seemed you’d managed to beat Hank and Connor to the rather grisly scene. A PM700 police android stood nearby to give you a briefing. Seven victims- 5 humans, 2 androids. An unmarked self-driving truck had dropped off the container in the middle of the night in front of the old church that was the hub of New Jericho. There’s been a bomb scare but instead inside there was- this.

 

Gavin shook his head, “Hell of a present to wake up to. I don’t get it, why dump this mess on Roboville’s front porch? It’s gotta be a message, but if it’s an anti-android one they did a shit job of it. Killed more humans than plastics.”

 

You nodded, forcing yourself to breathe through you mouth and trying not to gag as you surveyed the scene before speaking. “Whoever did this, it was planned well enough that that isn’t a mistake. Either the android to human ratio means something or the type of victim didn’t matter.”

 

It was clear the someone or someones who had arranged the scene had done so with the utmost care. Each body was arranged to be ramrod straight, hands folded neatly to chests. They lay in an odd pattern. From where you were currently standing the closest two ran parallel to each other, a little further away was a third, also parallel. To your left a pair lay perpendicular to each other, and past those another parallel pair.

 

“Hey,” you said, grabbing Gavin by the cuff of his coat sleeve and pulling him back from where he was examining one of the bodies. “Does this look like some kind of pattern to you?” Your partner quirked his head as he stepped back to take in the whole scene and you briefly registered the sound of footsteps behind you before the quiet stillness of the storage container erupted.

 

“HOLY SHIT!” came the voice of one Lt. Anderson, just arriving behind you. Connor just behind, looking mostly collected but with a clear sense of disturbance in his eyes.

 

“Yeah,” you heave a deep sigh. “It’s kind of a lot.”

 

“No, not that,” Hank shook his head. “I mean yeah, fuck, but-“

 

“Is this-“ he started, disbelief and exasperation running off him in waves.

 

“Is this fucking loss?”


	2. Memes & Malfunctions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor is confused  
> Hank is done  
> Gavin is there?  
> You’re thirsty... for a refreshing beverage
> 
> A controversial subject is brought up and Connor is wrong don’t @ me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: oh boy people actually read the dumb thing I wrote and left super sweet comments and are awesome human beings I definitely feel like continuing this cursed text
> 
> Me, 2 seconds later: oh boy people are actually reading this, I’m going to write more and human eyes will read words that I typed on my phone instead of sleeping and I cannot disappoint the lovely people *begins to sweat profusely*
> 
> *cough* back to reality, I mean we started with loss.jpg it’s only gonna get dumber and more contrived from here folks if I keep saying how non-serious this fic is maybe it’ll give me the will to not freak out about posting my dumb writing.

You blinked.

Hank had moved on from staring in disbelief to pinching the bridge of his nose and muttering something that may have been about needing a drink. The four of you stood in silence for a beat before Gavin broke it. 

“Okay, I have no clue in Hell what you’re trying to say here. Are you having some kind of stroke or did you just decide to give up and start drinking early today?”

You shot him a glare as the lieutenant sighed deeply and shook his head. “Oh chrissake, Reed, haven’t you ever used the internet? Loss?” He motioned to the bodies as if we were missing something obvious. “It was a whole thing!” He turned to you looking for some form of validation he wasn’t going to find.

“Sorry, not following,” you suck in your cheeks and send Hank an apologetic smile.

“Oh fuck I’m just aging myself is what I’m doing. It was a meme. A stupid comic that turned into a dumb joke on the internet. People made all kinds of edits until it all boiled down into a pattern of straight lines that people’d hide in plain sight in different images for a laugh. And that-“ he swung his arm to the bodies in utter exasperation. “That’s fucking loss.”

“Oookay,” you swallowed, not completely sure what Hank was talking about though the conviction in his eyes was almost alarming.

“The lieutenant is correct,” you started the tiniest bit as Connor spoke. Somehow without you noticing he had moved forward to survey the scene. Not for the first time you mentally cursed whatever Cyberlife engineer decided to give him ninja-like abilities in that regard. You supposed it made sense considering the work he was made for and tried to ignore how close he was standing to you now.

“I’ve just run an Internet search on the pattern of the victims which resulted in a multitude of images titled or captioned some variation of ‘loss’. I am having trouble understanding the phenononmeon that led to its popularity or how humans derived amusement from it, but it’s clear this distinct pattern of lines became something of a symbol representing the word ‘loss’.”

Hank sighed for the twentieth time that day, “It’s a meme, Connor, half the point was it didn’t make any damn sense. It wasn’t that funny in the first place and I’m damn sure not laughing now. Some psycho fuck’s got a sick sense of humor that’s for sure.”

“Well that narrows down the suspects already,” Gavin clapped his hands together. “We’re looking for someone batshit crazy and old as balls.”

“Not necessarily,” Connor rebounded, pausing whatever scans he was conducting. “While the ‘loss’ phenomenon seems to have peaked in popularity several decades ago, my cursory searches indicate a small following still exists for the me-me with more recent images including the symbol still being created.”

”Did you just-“ Hank began, seemingly grappling with a last thread of sanity. “Connor, did you just pronounce meme like ‘ _mimi_ ’?”

You tried to stifle a splutter of laughter that bubbled within you at the confused look the Android shot at his partner. You may not be familiar with the whole ‘loss’ thing or even most of the current nonsense the internet spewed out but you had a basic understanding of what a meme was and hearing Connor say it like that or even try to grasp the concept was somehow so alien and wrong. He seemed to pick up on your amusement and sent you a somewhat betrayed expression.

”I’m sorry, Connor-just. And after Anderson just said the word normally too. Oh god, I’m so sorry but if it turns out you pronounce gif like ‘ _jif_ ’ I might lose it.”

“If you are referring to the common image file type, Steve Wilhite, its own creator has stated that the word should be pronounced with a soft g. Is that not the accepted delivery?”

”Oh my god.”

”And I let you live in my house,” Hank grumbled before collecting himself. “Okay, we gonna stand around talking about how old I am and whether pinapple belongs on pizza or are we gonna investigate a damn crime scene? Got anything from those scans Connor?”

You sighed,a bit embarrassed to realize you’d been mostly standing around like an idiot so far and pulled on a pair of disposable gloves as you listened to the results Connor’s analysis.

 “According to facial analysis the human victims can be identified as Carl Felty, James Tenney, Heather Tew, Bernadette McDonald, and Heidi Chen. Heather was reported missing about two weeks ago and estimating from the current state of decomposition, died around that time. The records of the other human victims seem to indicate homelessness. I’ll have to take some thirium samples to identify the androids, but it seems like our killer may have chosen their victims based on convenience.”

”Well shit,” said Gavin. “Was kinda hoping they’d all be pro-android activists or some shit, make this make some sort of sense. But it’s looking more and more like some nutjob playing some sick joke. The location has to be significant though, right? I mean I don’t know what kind of statement this makes, but it sure as hell does make a statement.”

”Agreed, after we’re done here I’d like to question the leaders of Jericho to see if they know why they may have been targeted in this manner, aside from the obvious,” Connor replied.

You frowned. It was kind of hard to miss the presence of anti-android groups in the city. Most people seemed to have more or less accepted androids being free even if they may not completely accept them as equal to humans, but there would always be those more resistant to change. And they were pretty loud about it. It didn’t quite add up that an anti-android group would kill humans to send a message though. As you  leaned over one of the bodies-a female android, the only one perpendicular to the rest, you noticed something.

———

“Hey I think this one’s holding something,” [y/n]’s voice chimed from across the container.

Connor turned and stepped perhaps a little too eagerly towards his fellow detective. ‘It’s imperative I don’t miss what could be vital evidence,’ he rationalized internally. 

Recently he found himself at a loss when it came to you. You were a capable detective and he would like to think you considered him a friend. But there was something else there he couldn’t quite place- he found himself seeking out your presence more and more and that when he found it his thirium pump seemed to speed up for no discernible reason. He was beginning to think he was malfunctioning in some way but his diagnostic checks came back clear.

Connor quickly brushed the thoughts away as he bent down to see what you had found. He watched as you parted the deceased android’s hands and pulled out a small, shiny object.

”It’s a keychain,” you observed, and Connor nodded. Attached to the metal ring and chain was a small plastic simulacrum of a disposable paper cup. A pattern of purple and blue lines danced around the sides.

”Why a cup?” Gavin mused as he hovered nearby.

”Wait a second,” Connor breathed, gingerly taking the object from your hands and running a scan. “It’s a datacrypt.”

It was a common method of storing files on a portable device, much like usb drives of the past. Most modern computers had the capability of wirelessly reading the embedded chips - usually found in keychains or knick knacks. 

“It’s likely whatever files are contained hold some further message from the killer,” Connor continued.

Hank sighed deeply and pinched the bridge of his nose again, “Holds things.” He shook his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: ok brain we need some kind of futuristic usb drive
> 
> My brain: an amiibo?
> 
> Me: no
> 
> ....
> 
> Me: ok


	3. INTERMISSION (& inquiry)

Ok first up sorry my dudes this isn’t an actual chapter I’m working on it but I had an idea I thought might be fun but Idk if people will love it or hate it so I’m gonna put it to a poll . Basically I’m a giganto nerd whose into puzzles & riddles, and steganography and basically our heroes are gonna get some clues of that nature pretty soon because our killer is a cryptic ass and welllll I thought maybe it’d be neat to make this story a little interactive by giving you guys the coded image that will be part of it and see if you can find the relevant information. What I have in mind I don’t think is too hard to figure out if you do a little bit of research on steganography and use the clues. Depending on if it gets figured out or not I can maybe incorporate into the story like if you do then Reader does and if not the other characters take up the slack. And maybe whoever gets the answer first or gets closest can have a tiny request to include in the fic (like a particular meme or situation no dbh memes or smut tho sorry).

Thanks again for the response to this I didn’t think anyone was gonna read it and I’m so grateful people have gotten some amusement out of it!

Here’s the poll, sorry if this is a dumb idea lol:

https://www.strawpoll.me/16723175

P.S. Had the realization that for the past chaps Connor & Reader have been in a shipping container and mad at myself the pun wasn’t even intentional

**Author's Note:**

> What is this??? Idek why I wrote this but uhh if you want more of this stupidity please comment cause that would motivate me to write more. More of this???? Is that a promise or a threat I don’t even know 
> 
> I’m sorry.


End file.
